Connection-On the Way to the Valley
by Twisha
Summary: On the way to Serenity Valley, Mal has a strange reaction. Set in my "Connection" universe. It was supposed to be a one shot but it balooned into it's own story. PLEASE review! Now Complete.
1. Chapter 1

Author's note: I meant this to be a one shot but it got bigger. I'm going to continue with my one shots in "Connection" and make this its own story. Seriously, please review, even if it's just a quick "I liked/hated it". If it seems like Mal's acting out of character, well there's a reason for that. Virtual cookies to whoever figures out which Castle episode I reference!

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21 March, 2511

After five years of war, Zoe Alleyne figured she knew Malcolm Reynolds better than just about anybody in the 'verse. She'd seen him shot, stabbed, too damn drunk to spit straight, bare-ass naked, and on one memorable occasion, all four of them at once. In all that time, however, she'd never seen him anything like this.

His expression was disturbingly cheerful. "You ever heard of Sardines Zoe?"

"Sir?"

"Sardines," Mal repeated. He poked absently at something on the seat back hanging over him. "They're these tiny little fish they harvest on New Melbourne."

"I'm familiar with the concept, sir. What about them?"

"Well," he said, warming to his topic, "you see, they take a whole bunch of those little fish and stuff them very tightly in these tins." He mimed a packing motion with his hands. "Then, they toss in a handful of salt and seal the lid. It keeps em fresh for months. They can ship 'em all over the verse that way." He made a large, sweeping gesture with his arm. Close as their quarters were at the moment, he narrowly avoided smacking her upside the head.

"Ah," she said, nodding in sudden understanding. "Never thought I'd be lookin' at things from their perspective."

"My point exactly!" he exclaimed, flashing a slightly maniacal grin. "Although", he considered, growing serious for a second, "now that I think about it, those fish may have had more room than we."

There was something odd about his speech, she realized. Not that Zoe wasn't inclined to agree with his words, mind. The troop carrier, which looked about as old as the verse itself, was stuffed to the bulwarks with warm bodies. Up until a few weeks ago it had been nothing more than an old cargo freighter, but once the call came down that extra grunts would be needed on Hera right quick, it had been hastily retrofitted to suit the independents' purposes. Never mind that it didn't have any grav dampeners in the cargo bay. They needed boots on Hera, and they needed 'em yesterday, and if body had to withstand more than a few hours of microgravity to get there, then so be it. At least that's what the Brass had decided anyhow. Now she and near a thousand souls were flat on their backs sitting pretty on several thousand tons of high explosives, all ready to fight for the cause. Assuming this old clunker made it off the launch pad that is. She turned her head to consider the man strapped next to her.

"More room than us you mean?"

His eyes lost focus for a second as he shook his head. "We. First person plural," he mumbled.

Zoe blinked. "Shénme(what)?" she blurted.

And then he was back. "Did I say something funny?"

"Are you all right, sir?" she asked.

"Sure, why wouldn't I be?"

She looked at him then, really looked at him. Something was definitely off, but she couldn't for the life of her put her finger on what. He was, for lack of a better word, fidgety. Not that Mal was an unusually _still_ man as a rule, he often had a quiet intensity about him, but he was generally able to contain most of his energy most of the time. It was a soldier's thing, she supposed, economy of movement. Soldiers, the good ones at least, learned right quick that there was a limit to human endurance and, war being the unpredictable beast it was, there was a good chance that they could be pushed up against that limit at any time. As there were few people in the 'verse who had the balls to deny that Mal was a damn good soldier, and those few would be dead wrong besides, he normally husbanded his resources carefully.

Now though, his feet tapped the wall in an irritating rhythm. He poked and pulled at his straps. He was, dear God, was he humming to himself? He was acting less like the disciplined Sergeant she depended on and more like a, well, like a demented nine-year-old on a sugar rush. Even the smirk he gave her when he noticed her watching was decidedly more crooked than usual.

Good Lord, was he drunk?

"I'm not drunk!" he exclaimed.

She raised an eyebrow.

"What", he whined. "Oh come on Zoe, I've been good! Nothing to eat or drink since last night."

Her second eyebrow joined the first. Since when did Malcolm Reynolds _whine_?

"Besides", he continued, his voice lowering conspiratorially, "I don't do well in zero-g, you know that."

Comprehension dawned. "You let them drug you."

"Would you _rather_ I spend the trip dry heaving into your lap?" he pouted.

She raised her hands to her temples, trying to ward off the near inevitable headache. "Ai ya Mal, don't you know that those drugs mess with your head?" The use of his given name was a sure sign of her irritation.

"The ones for motion sickness?" He looked dubious.

She nodded. "There is one they call the 'Zombie drug'. It makes you very susceptible to suggestion."

"How do I know if they gave me that one?"

"Bizui (shut up)", she said. His eyebrows shot up, "bizui, sir", she added.

There was a brief silence.

"I don't think it worked", he quipped.

"Pity", she replied.

To her surprise he shivered. "Zoe, is it cold in here to you?" He pinched the bridge of his nose, that gesture familiar at least. "And why is everyone shouting all of a sudden?"

"Temperature's fine sir. A bit on the warm side even. " The hum of activity around them hadn't increased either. Worried now, she placed a hand on his shoulder. She could feel heat radiating off his body, even through the soft leather of his coat. His eyes were dilated, his face flushed. She slid out of the seat and had one foot on the ladder before he could say anything else.

"Where the hell are you going?"

"To get the medic sir."

"The hell you are." He struggled clumsily with his own straps. "We're supposed to break atmo in half an hour!" he yelled.

It was too late. She was already gone.

She couldn't find Charlie Davis, the squad's normal doc. He must've been in a different section. Poor planning on the Brass' part but that was to be expected. So she climbed all the way up to the officers' section, experiencing a brief wave of vertigo as the "wall" she was climbing suddenly decided to become the floor. So the officers could have artificial grav could they? Damn them, and damn Mal too while she was at it. If he hadn't've insisted on staying with his troops there would have been no need for meds in the first damn place. "Stubborn hu dan," she muttered, not quite sure if she was referring to Mal or her ownself. She managed to find Mal's immediate superior and demanded, quietly and patiently, to speak to a doctor. Lieutenant Chang sneered at her.

"What's the matter Zoe, that Sergeant of yours givin' you fits again?"

"No sir." She said, biting back a sarcastic retort. Arguing with this hu dan (bastard) wouldn't get Mal the help he needed; no matter how much she might have enjoyed it. "I think he's having a bad reaction to the motion sickness meds."

"What kind of reaction?" A soft, sleek voice inquired from somewhere behind her. She turned, and beheld a small man, clearly of Asian descent. His short hair was thinning and his face was spotted with liver marks. His eyes glinted behind tiny, yet costly, corrective lenses. Something about his nose and mouth put her in mind of a rat.

She despised him immediately.

He wore a baby blue lab coat that was slightly the worse for wear. A worn area on the front indicated that some sort of patch or logo had been removed recently. He stood just a hair too close to her, forcing her to crane her neck downward to meet his beady little eyes.

"Nervousness, sudden fever, and he said that people 'round us were talkin' too loud". She hesitated. "And there's something wrong with the way he's talkin," she said.

"His rimworlder colloquialisms too much for you Corporal?" scoffed the Lieutenant, amazing himself with his own wit.

"No." It hit her then, what had been bugging her the whole time. How could she have missed it? It was obvious. "He's lost his accent."

The unnamed doctor leered greedily, his perfect teeth strange in the pock-marked face. "Excellent," he said. "Please take me to him!"

Zoe lead him into the cargo bay, even more taciturn than usual. The doc on the other hand, giggled and twittered like a kid at Christmas.

"Oh this is so exciting! I was afraid there wouldn't be any on this trip!" he exclaimed.

"Any what?" she asked, not liking the sound of this at all.

Someone yelled from below, "Hey, I think this guy's having a seizure!"

The doctor's smile widened. "Any Readers, of course!" He glanced down. "We'd better hurry though."

She'd never moved faster in her life.

Additional author's note: I decided to make this part a two shot because it was getting too long. Don't freak out about the reader thing though, Mal is under the influence of a really nasty drug. (Seriously, look up the effects of scopolamine, but only if you're prepared to have nightmares. It's that bad.) He's not normally like this.

Any guesses as to what's going on?

Reviews are super shiny inspiration! Thanks for reading.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's note: How's my Mal voice?

Mal Reynolds considered himself an adaptable sort of fellow. Came in handy, line of work he was in. He'd heard once that 'No battle plan survives contact with the enemy', which was true enough, though in his experience things tended to go south even sooner. Still, being able to roll with the punches had saved the life of his and his own more times than he could count.

But he hadn't the slightest damn clue how to respond to this.

"Ok doc, hows about you explain that again?"

The weasely little man sighed and began again. "You are experiencing a drug-induced TPE _*you moron*_".

That last bit weren't exactly audible in the strictest sense of the word, and therein lay the problem. Ever since he'd woken up in this sorry excuse for an infirmary he'd been hearing all manner of things he had no business knowing. Oh, it could be useful he supposed, being able to tell if a man were lying to you and such but it made Mal uncomfortable. Folk kept secrets for a reason. He didn't need to know exactly what Zoe thought of his ass (flattering as it may be, it was unprofessional) and he didn't even want to think about why Lt. Chang wanted his whores to call him Daddy. He felt like a regular peeping Tom, and the worst part was, he couldn't seem to turn it off.

"Right", Mal said, "Transparent psychic doohicky".

"NO," the doc replied. His assertion was accompanied by several more disparaging thoughts about Mal's upbringing and intelligence (or lack thereof), but Mal tried to ignore it and focus on what was being said. "T.P.E." the man repeated, as if to a small child. "Transient Psionic Episode, brought on by the topical application of scopolamine as a prophylactic against motion sickness." Mal grinned. At least he'd managed to piss the fellow off. It was the least he could do considering the trouble the doc had caused him.

Mal started again. "So you gave me a drug that allows me to hear what other folk are thinking." The doc nodded. "Shiny as that is," and Mal gave him a glare that said that it was anything but, "what I want to know is when the hell is it going to wear off?"

"Scopolamine has a half-life of about ten hours. You have been unconscious for six. _*I gave him the additional dose right after he was brought in.* _We really don't know how long the psionic effects will last." The doc smiled creepily. "That's why this interview is so important Mr. Reynolds. This is a rare phenomenon you are experiencing. The potential for scientific discovery is enormous."

With difficulty, Mal restrained an entirely reasonable urge to punch the doc in the face. Gorramn Core folk, ready to pump you full of drugs for a science experiment without even having the courtesy to ask. Wasn't that why the war existed in the first damn place? Why was this doc even here? His soldier's instincts began to scream. Something was very, very wrong.

"I ain't your gorramn lab rat!" he growled, swinging his legs over the side of the table. The room spun wildly and the doc had to grab him to keep him off the floor. His touch was cold and papery, almost corpse-like, but that was not what made Mal pull away in horror.

He Saw. Everything.

Everything this man was, everything he wanted to do, to Mal, to, dear God, to children. He would cut them up and put them back together. Make them into Tools to be Used until they broke. The worst kind of slavery.

He had to stop him.


	3. Chapter 3

Author's note: This one is going to be really heavy on the neuroscience so bear with me. I studied it in college and I've done a bunch of research on scopolamine too. It's as accurate as I can make it. All of the effects of scopolamine are accurate (except the psychic part of course). I didn't make it up just to fit the story. As I've said before, it's a scary drug.

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_He had to stop him._

The doc pulled back as soon as Mal regained his balance on the examination table. Mal considered his situation. Now that he knew the doc was an enemy, Mal began to think tactically.

One, he was in trouble. This man planned on taking him back to the core for more 'tests'. He wasn't planning on asking either. That pissed Mal off but he suppressed it. He needed to think this through. Sad to say, he couldn't just punch the doc. Whatever this drug was it was messing with his balance. After wracking his brain, (and inadvertently the brains of a few other folk on the ship) he decided to fall back on his usual brilliant escape plan.

Stall until Zoe could get there to pull his pigu out of the fire.

At least this time he knew for a fact that she was coming for him, not that he ever really doubted, but it was nice to be absolutely sure. Being psychic wasn't all bad he supposed. Then his mind brushed up against the doc's again. He really was a foul creature, kicked out of his lab for 'unethical' practices. That's why he was here, trying to get back in his company's good graces. Mal shivered.

So, how to play this? He could act excited, eager for more power. No, he needed information. Not just information, he needed _proof_. His gaze fell on a medical recorder. A plan started to form.

"You just need to interview me?" Mal asked.

The doc nodded.

"You gonna record it?"

The doc nodded again.

"Well, I figure that'd be allright."

The evil little man beamed and busied himself preparing the recorder. Mal tried not to gag as the man's thoughts assaulted him. Blue Sun, the Alliance, psychic assassins, it was all too much. He shook his head. He had to focus. Get the proof and get out of here Just another mission. He'd sort out the metaphysical implications later.

The doc pulled a data stick out of a drawer and inserted it into the device. Then he turned to Mal.

"Ok, let's get the basics out of the way. What is your full name?"

"Malcolm Alexander Reynolds."

"Age?"

"27*"

"Height, weight?"

"6'1''. 175lb."

"Family?"

Mal shoved down a surge of anger. "None." He answered.

The doc looked up questioningly. "None?"

Mal gritted his teeth. "That's right."

The shorter man looked skeptical.

Mal narrowed his eyes. "I'm from Shadow." he asserted. The doc didn't understand. He opened his mouth to ask if Mal was certain he had no relatives. Mal pointedly preempted him. "I'm from _Shadow_." The man offered a sad excuse for an apology that Mal would have known was insincere even if he hadn't been able to pick the thoughts out of his head. The doc was sorry, not that an entire planet got wiped out, but that he couldn't access anyone who might share this "ability". Mal felt sick again. These core docs were twisted. He doubted he'd ever be able to trust one again. Mal came back to himself as the doc continued his questions.

"Could you please describe what you are experiencing?"

"I can hear what folk are thinking."

"No", the doc replied heatedly, "that's not what I'm looking for". Becoming agitated, the man began to pace. "I have already proved conclusively that this phenomenon exists." Mal 'heard' the man's mind bubble with arguments and justifications for his assertion. Mal tried to keep from grinning. This was his in, all he needed to do was doubt the doc and that would put him on the defensive. It sure was a hell of a lot easier to manipulate people when you could hear what they were thinkin. Then again, he thought sourly, that was sort of the point. His inner grin faded as he remembered the stakes. The doc kept talking. "What I want to know is, how does it feel, qualitatively that is?"

"Look doc," Mal said, deciding to go for broke, "How do you know I ain't just hallucinating all this?" The doc bristled. "I mean, psychic? Me? Golly doc, how does that work?" He'd played the 'dumb rimworlder' card before. It put people off, made them underestimate him. Mal needed this guy to take the bait, and would take any advantage he could get. "And I'm afraid I'm gonna need that in Sargeant dummy talk", he said, before the doc launched into a tirade about 'peer reviewed articles' and 'statistically significant results'. "I mean, most folk what got this drug don't start hearing voices. What's so special 'bout me?"

"It's the amygdala", the doc said, and Mal knew he had him. His voice took on a lecturing tone. "Scopolomine is a tropane alkaloid drug with muscarinic antagonist effects." At Mal's blank look he explained, "It blocks the action of acetylcholine in certain parts of the nervous system." He tried again, "It makes it so that some parts of your brain can't signal correctly, among them a small area in the middle of the brain called the amygdala. In most people that area is responsible for attributing emotion to memories. It is instrumental in the development of phobias and addiction. We've known this for hundreds of years. About fifteen years ago, a woman we call M.H. came into a hospital on Osiris. She had had an unusual stroke. Among the areas affected was her hippocampus, which encodes memories, and her amygdala. Her functioning was very impaired, she could no longer form new memories, and yet she knew the name of every single person at the hospital, even though she had never been there before." He grinned maniacally. "Do you understand? She didn't_ remember_ the names, she couldn't, no more than an amputee can use his missing limb. She was picking the names _directly from the subjects' minds_."

"How is that possible?" Mal asked. "How could brain damage make someone psychic?"

"Well, that's the question isn't it Mr. Reynolds? We know she wasn't psychic before the stroke, but every test the scientists ran after the stroke only confirmed her abilities. It was a scientific mystery." The doc smiled again "But I figured it out." Mal indicated that he should continue. "You see, some people, such as yourself, have an overly active amygdala. No one understood why. Those people are psychic Mr. Reynolds. I have proved that the amygdala in these people actively inhibits that psychic ability."

"So if you disable the amygdala..." Mal began.

"You disable the inhibitory signal and the psychic ability manifests itself," the doc finished.

Someone banged on the door. Thank God for Zoe, right on time, as usual. When the doc went to open it, Mal snagged a blank data stick from the drawer and shoved it in the recording device. He forced the real one into a ripped seam in the cuff of his coat just as the doc returned with Zoe and a woman with a lot of stars on her shoulder that Mal didn't know.

* * *

*Mal's only supposed to be 25 here but I aged him up a bit for plot purposes.

So that's why they stripped River's amygdala, at least in my mind. Pretty please with sugar on top, take the time to review. Did the neuroscience make sense? What do you think of the idea? I'm not sure how well this flows so any writing tips would be greatly appreciated. Seriously, reviews are my candy.


	4. Chapter 4

Belated disclaimer: I don't own these characters, I'm just playing with them.

Author's note: Ok, so here's the last chapter so I can go back to my other fic. I hope you guys like it. I realize it's a little weird, but I'm proud of it.

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_Someone banged on the door. Thank God for Zoe, right on time, as usual. When the doc went to open it, Mal snagged a blank data stick from the drawer and shoved it in the recording device. He forced the real one into a ripped seam in the cuff of his coat just as the doc returned with Zoe and a woman with a lot of stars on her shoulder that Mal didn't know._

Richard Castle glared at his datapad. His dream had ended there and the compulsion to write was fading just as rapidly. He went over what he had written with a critical eye. The reread only confirmed his initial assessment. It was terrible, run on sentences, horrible grammar, no pacing to speak of. Yes, this piece of go-se was, in his professional opinion, quite possibly the worst thing he had ever written.

He'd been inspired by dreams before, had awoken in the small hours of the night with an idea burning in his mind, begging to be let out. It was an occupational hazard, and he accepted that. This time though, it had been different. This dream demanded to be put to the page. He'd nearly killed himself on the way to his desk, not even bothering to turn on the light. Clad only in his boxers, he'd written like a man possessed.

And it was crap. Complete and utter crap.

He swept his palm over his face before checking the time. Damn, 5:45. Alexis would be awake in a couple of hours. He should go back to bed. Supposedly lack of sleep could trigger an episode. He wasn't so sure, he seemed to have just as many attacks when he observed his bedtime as when he stayed awake for days. Nothing he did seemed to make a damn bit of difference.

_"Your body is at war Mr. Castle," _the pretty doc had told him. _"Or at least, it thinks it is."_

Five years. It had been almost five years since he had collapsed in his apartment, awake, yet completely unable to move. His mother had connections in the Companion's guild, so that's where they'd brought him. At first, they had thought the problem lay with a certain nerve cluster in his back, but scans had shown no evidence of damage. Even after he was able to move again, they had continued to poke and prod him for months before settling on a diagnosis.

Dysautonomia.

_"Do you have a will made out Mr. Castle?"_

Even now, his anger at fate burned hotly. He had just turned twenty-three, newly divorced, with a beautiful two-year-old to raise and he had been more than ready to start over, to experience a lifetime of things with her. The idea that his heart could just...stop, for no discernible reason, that hadn't been part of his plan at all. He had never even heard of the autonomic nervous system before he'd gotten sick, had no idea that it controled important things like heart rate and blood pressure and, you know, breathing.

He looked back to his writing.

"You know Mal, life just isn't fair."

He was fairly sure Mal already knew that.

He shook his head. That dream must still be muddling his thoughts. Usually it took at least two books and a fifth of whisky before he started talking out loud to his characters.

Not that he was allowed to drink anymore.

That thought lead to a question. He booted up the cortex and typed in the word "scopolamine". The overly polite screen droned on, using complicated scientific terms like "competitive antagonist" and "antimuscarinic agent". He gathered from the technobabble that it stimulated the sympathetic nervous system like atropine, which is where he must have heard of it because atropine was a big no-no for people with his condition. Then he tapped a link titled "Your Brain on Scopolamine".

The screen jumped to a video of an older lady with a much friendlier voice than the computer. She seemed to be delivering a lecture.

"Memories are facilitated through a brain chemical called acetylcholine," she said with a smile. "When Scopolamine comes onboard it competes with acetylcholine, wins the competition and blocks the acetylcholine receptor in the brain, so that the lock and key fit isn't made. This lock and key fit - lock (acetylcholine receptor) fit with the key (brain chemical acetylcholine) - is important in how you make memories."

Now this was interesting!

She continued. "What we remember goes through three key stages: the initial making of the memory (encoding), creation of long-term memories (storage/consolidation) and recall (retrieval).  
Scopolamine blocks the first stage, memory encoding, which takes place in the hippocampus – an area critical for memory. In other words, the information never gets stored in the first place."

So the Mal in his story would have no memory of anything that happened once he was given the drug huh? That was a neat twist. Not that he could ever publish such a thing. The censors would have a fit. If they went crazy over something as innocuous as 'Miranda Rights' (and that was something he had never figured out), he didn't want to think about what they might do if he gave them a story about a "Dirty Browncoat". That's why he wrote historical fiction. He could get away with a lot more insubordination when it looked as if he were commenting on the culture of Earth-That-Was.

He sighed. It was too bad really. He kinda liked Mal. His finger hovered over the Delete icon for a long moment before deciding to save the crazy little story in his Junk file. He shut his pad down and promptly forgot all about it.

"Alexis!" he called as he entered the kitchen. He was rewarded with a soft groan from the door at the top of the stairs. "Time to get ready for school pumpkin. What kind of pancakes do you want?"

Maybe, if he was lucky, his body wouldn't go to war today.

He really should have known better.

**The End**

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So there you go! Mal doesn't remember anything, because that is what the drug does. If you squint, this fic even fits in the cannon Firefly 'Verse. Seriously though, please review. I worked hard on getting the details of the science right and I hope it worked out. See you guys later in "Connection" (I hope).

Oh, and if anyone has a pressing need to beta for someone, I'm available. To be betaed that is. I apologize for any errors.


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